


Inflorescence

by polyphenols



Category: Samurai Warriors
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, I'm not a cat, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2257518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyphenols/pseuds/polyphenols
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very long time after Sekigahara, a hand towel and a cat meet in college. Starts out sad, turns into a heartwarming story about having no clue of what you're doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Three years after Sekigahara, Todo Takatora hears about the curse.

They tell him that Kobayakawa Hideaki has gone mad. That the young man, who has everything he could desire except for a good name, has been afraid to sleep because he is being watched by shadows, and there are always shadows because he refuses to light a single lamp in the house after dark. The flame will attract butterflies, Kobayakawa screams at his servants, emphatically. Not moths, _butterflies_. Smiles as if he is impressed that in the chaos he has made of the world he dwells in, he is still able to come to this one conclusion.

Takatora hears about this second-hand, or third, and makes no remark because silence is still his idea of being good company. Late at night, walking back home after a few drinks or a meeting that lasted too long, and there really is very little distinction between the two, he will ignore the brilliance of the moon wide above the rooftops of Edo. Such a flat simple thing like the moon is not enough to make him say it. He is very drunk. There are no flowers in the streets in September.

Every year on the day he goes to that place. Maybe this time, he thinks—but then he does not allow himself to finish the thought. The camellia bushes have grown with every year, the flowers almost too lovely to be real, splashes of red as bright as blood. Maybe he dreams this. Everyone knows that camellias only bloom in winter, but here he is, here they are, every fall. If ever there is a mist like there was on that day he is afraid he will fall through it, unmoored in time and space, backwards and reeling. But this year it rains.

Standing in the downpour, drenched through his hair and all his clothes, unable to distinguish the earth from the sky in an endless sea of gray, he finally says it.

_It’s been three years. It’s been three goddamned years, and I remember everything that you said._

_I don’t have a dream to hold on to._

_It’s been three years, so why don’t you curse me, too? Curse me, why haven’t you cursed me?_

_Please—_

 

.

 

_This is a dream_ , she says, and holds the umbrella over him.

_I don’t even know you_ , he replies.

 

.

 

Todo Takatora meets Otani Yoshitsugu in the third year of college, which in retrospect makes about as much sense as anything else.

By then Takatora has changed his major five times. A not insignificant number of his friends, peers, and professors have asked him what the hell, exactly, he thinks he is doing. A subset of these have snidely remarked behind his back that all he really wants to do is find something at which he can make the most money with the least effort. Takatora has not argued with any of these people, not because he agrees but because it doesn’t matter if they don’t. He is going to find his own way—he thinks this with confidence so unshakeable that he will find it hilarious, later—and he is going to be goddamned happy about it.

When the shelf full of glass bottles tips over in organic chem lab, he grabs the hand of the nearest person, who had happened to be standing there in a manner he could only describe as mildly catatonic, and pulls him out of the way. Otani Yoshitsugu looks at him for the first time and blinks. “Hey,” Takatora says, any further remark lost in the clamor of their chem professor (Matsunaga D. Hisahide) rushing to the scene and shouting _what the helllllllll are you doing_ with just a touch more glee on his face than is decent. All damages are later billed to the department chair, one Oda Nobunaga.

So then comes a semester of walking to their classes together, sitting at the café in the afternoon with an ocean of notes and textbooks on the table between them, even though neither of them really need any help with their homework. The weather is getting warmer, and Takatora asks whether Yoshitsugu is going to take off that ridiculous and really very comfortable-looking hat any time soon. And that scarf. “Because I haven’t seen your face,” he adds helpfully.

“If you see it you’ll die.” Yoshitsugu smiles at him with his eyes, which makes him think of a small cat asleep in the sun. The hat isn’t helping.

“I’ve always believed there are things worth the risk.”

“You don’t know that until you actually risk something.”

This is new; this is something no one has said to him before. “I’ve changed my mind plenty of times on what I wanted to do. Recklessly, I’ve been told.”

“Not really. When you know what you _do_ want, when you know what it means to have something, some person or idea you’d do anything for, then you’ll know what recklessness really means. Until then, you’re just going with the flow.”

“If I had a penny for every time you mentioned the goddamned flow—”

“You’d have enough for one coffee, maybe two.”

Takatora laughs, and it’s funny, really, how being in the mere presence of this one person makes him feel warm, even if they’ve never agreed on anything. So when he gets kicked out of the dormitories at the end of summer session for lighting the carpet on fire with a soldering iron, having gotten a little too absorbed in building one of his projects, he thinks of asking Yoshitsugu to rent an apartment with him. But he doesn’t even get the chance to bring it up, because Yoshitsugu is suddenly, overwhelmingly busy, owing to the fact that the universe has quite unexpectedly thrown in his path one Ishida Mitsunari.

Ishida Mitsunari is someone not suited for the twenty-first century. Ishida Mitsunari will never back down from a controversy, as long as he’s in the right (and he usually is, Yoshitsugu says, just not in a way that people want to hear). You’ll need to have known him nearly forever to be able to tell when he’s being nice, and even then only a handful of people can do it. He works too hard, thinks too hard, tries too hard. He had once worn a pink bathrobe and fuzzy slippers to all his classes for an entire day without explanation or acting as if anything was out of the ordinary, because he promised someone that he would do it. Takatora hears all of this without asking for it, from nearly everyone he knows, because Ishida Mitsunari is running for student council president. And doing so in an unprecedentedly determined manner, with an actual platform of things he wants to radically change, a long list of people he has pissed off in his wake, and a campaign manager. Yoshitsugu is the campaign manager. The entire student body is talking about Ishida Mitsunari with fervid curiosity, passing along these lists of facts about him as if he were an internet meme, but often with a note of knowing pity: he has good ideas, yes, too bad no one’s going to listen, of course he’ll never win.

“I just think it’s futile,” Takatora finally says. “I  think it’s a waste of time.”

Yoshitsugu gives him a look, pulls the scarf up around his own face a little higher.

“For all you’ve said about going with the flow, isn’t it obvious—”

“I never said that I wanted to.”

So that afternoon he studies at the café alone, with one cup of coffee, and then two. When it rains the next day all the VOTE ISHIDA fliers around campus are soaked through, so Yoshitsugu takes them all down and puts up a new set, meticulously, and because the weather is still complete shit, gets sick for the next two weeks. Takatora thinks that maybe he should apologize, maybe, really, actually, right fucking now, but he doesn’t even know what he should apologize for, how to begin. There’s too much to do. They don’t see each other often.

It rains on and off all through that autumn, and because he insistently wants his mind to wander to other things he notices that a girl sitting in the front row of the lecture hall always comes in with a pink umbrella, one of those old-fashioned ones, folds it neatly and leans it against her chair. Sometimes she brings in flowers.

One day, that day, she comes to class wearing a crimson camellia in her hair, touched with rain and as red as blood. He does not remember what he is doing in the moment prior to seeing it. He remembers everything else. Recollection is as terribly easy, as involuntary as the sudden jolt that feels like falling, the one that pulls you out of sleep.

(It’s been four hundred and fourteen years.)

Takatora jumps up from his seat, and Izumo no Okuni turns around, looks at him and smiles.

He runs down the aisle at a frantic pace, nearly tripping over himself, and shoves himself out the nearest exit. The professor doesn’t even turn to look at him. In the stairwell he stands half hunched over, hands on his knees, gasping sobs while trying not to vomit. He hears her footsteps behind him, and manages to stand up straight.

“What have you got against me?” he says.

“You know better than to say that,” she says. Her voice is smoke on water, dreams of an impossible spring.

“What do I do, now? What do I _do_ —”

“That’s always been up to you.”

 

 

In the bathroom he stares himself down in the mirror. The future, as he pictures it, winds down like this: a few weeks from now, Ishida Mitsunari will lose the election. He will see them standing together, Yoshitsugu trying to console his friend, and hey at least no one’s dead this time, isn’t that great, you probably don’t want to see me again, do you? He will stop in his tracks for just a moment, on the way to wherever he is going. And he will tell himself, forcefully, though it is just the opposite of what he means:

_Don’t say anything._

_Don’t say anything._

_Don’t say anything, don’t look up, just keep walking on._

This is what he sees, the natural consequence of cause and effect like chained chemical reactions, the flow of water downward, of time itself. The way things will be, if he lets them be.

Fuck that.

 

 

At a quarter past midnight Takatora is standing outside the dorm with a bouquet of flowers, telling himself that for someone who has technically seen nearly a century of life, he really shouldn’t feel as embarrassed as he does right now when his fellow students stop to stare and giggle at him. He just needs a moment to gather himself.

A window opens on the second floor, and Ishida Mitsunari sticks his head out. “What the _hell_ ,” Mitsunari says, and picks up his phone.

A few minutes later Yoshitsugu taps him on the shoulder, and he nearly jumps out of his shoes. Only vaguely does he notice that Yoshitsugu has not come from the building but the footpath leading away from it. “What—”

“I was looking for you.”

“What, why?”

“There doesn’t have to be a reason. This, on the other hand…” Yoshitsugu gives the flowers in his hand a rather aggressive whack. They are tulips. Probably.

“I just, well, wow, let me start over. I’m here to tell you that I’m the dumbest person in the world.”

“Why might that be?”

“It’s taken me, uh, because seriously, it’s taken me f—”

“A very long time?” In spite of the poor lighting outside, Takatora can swear that Yoshitsugu is smiling like a cat.

“Yes. Exactly. A very long time. It’s taken me a very long time to finally understand what you’ve been saying. Why some things might mean so much even if they seem like a lost cause. And what it really means to be reckless, to recklessly care about something.”

“That’s good.”

“It’s not too late for me to say that, is it?”

“Show me, first.”

“What?”

“Show me what you’ve understood, if it’s more than just words. How you’ll go against the flow.”

He pulls down the scarf around Yoshitsugu’s face carefully, so tentatively that it takes an impossibly long time. The hell with it, Takatora thinks, I’ve already nominated myself as the dumbest man in the world. But then he cannot think about anything else. “Well, now I’m dead,” he says. “You can do with me as you like. No, I mean, so this is what you look like. Yep. Are you sure you’re not a cat? I—”

Yoshitsugu kisses him first.

There are just enough of his reasoning faculties left for Takatora to realize he has dropped the flowers and they have blown into the street, at the exact moment that a car speeds by and demolishes them, petals of all colors trailing behind in a whirlwind insistently bright in the dark.

 

**Postscript**

 

Ishida Mitsunari won the election by a surprising landslide, due in part to the sudden appearance of a very committed vice campaign manager, though his duties were temporary suspended after backhanding Kato Kiyomasa in the face. There is currently a FREE MITSUN petition circulating among his supporters, which he finds mildly amusing, as he does not need to be freed from anything aside from the promise he made (under no duress, to a particularly dear friend) to wear an enormous pink fluffy object that resembles a fried shrimp on his head for the rest of the semester.

Professor Hisahide’s current teaching assistant is one Akechi Mitsuhide, who has made well-mannered but firm efforts at correcting the impression that Hisahide is his slightly mad uncle. Hisahide shouting _how positively adoraaaable_ every time Mitsuhide is seen talking with Chosokabe Motochika, however, has only cemented this bit of information or misinformation.

There is no Izumo no Okuni registered at the school.

Todo Takatora finally settled on majoring in architecture. After all, he says, this is his one burning passion, aside from the other one. _The other one_ kindly requests that he not make such comments when being interviewed by the student paper.


	2. Epilogue: That's Cool

Contrary to popular opinion, after he moved in with Otani Yoshitsugu, Todo Takatora did not replace all the knives in the kitchen.

To tell the truth, the kitchen had been far from his thoughts for the past few weeks. Being an international student at a prestigious grad program for architecture was more than enough to keep him busy, even if, as he had soon learned from dealing with his professors, that no matter the era and the country, there was always someone more than willing to treat you as a hand towel. But in this present life there were many things he had to be grateful for, even if the weather was not one of them—

“What are you doing?”

Yoshitsugu’s voice was unperturbed and mildly disappointed, as if he really did not expect Takatora to be doing anything tonight other than standing in front of the open freezer as if longing to stick his head in. “It’s too hot,” Takatora replied. “Aren’t you hot? With all that you’re wearing.”

“No,” Yoshitsugu replied, “when you are at ease with yourself, you’ll naturally feel cool.”

This was, of course, bullshit. This was also probably a convoluted way of saying something about _the flow_ , but Takatora had bet Yoshitsugu five dollars and an indeterminate quantity of dignity and pride that the latter would not be able to refrain from mentioning the flow for two weeks, and so far Yoshitsugu was doing very well. “Sometimes I think you have an air conditioning system in there,” Takatora grumbled, nodding toward the clothing and scarf that Yoshitsugu had wrapped himself in.

“And sometimes I think you were an ice cube in a previous life.”

“No,” Takatora replied flatly, “ice cubes, by definition, are not triangular.” But really, enough with this previous life nonsense. Lately Yoshitsugu had been making too many of these remarks, with what he thought were delighted smiles or testing glances: _are you sure you weren’t a hand towel in a past life?_ Or, when they had nearly been dive-bombed by a Steller’s Jay, curse the glorious fauna of North America: _you must have been one of these birds, right?_ Takatora was certain by now that Yoshitsugu was messing with him. After all, last year…

Last year, when they were still in Japan, he had stood in front of Yoshitsugu at midnight and began, _It’s taken me f—_

And Yoshitsugu had cut in with the usual imperturbable smile, _A very long time, right?_

Takatora hadn’t been sure, back then, if he had continued his thought, whether he would have said _forever_ or _four hundred and fourteen years_. Whether there would have been any change in the latter’s expression if he did. In this past year of almost overwhelming happiness he had been living, he realized now, as if he assumed that Yoshitsugu already knew, remembered as much as he did. He had just never found the right occasion to bring it up, and really, there was no reason why he should. It was better not to look back.

“Take your face out of the freezer, Takatora.”

“Oh. Right.” Takatora closed the door dividing him from the only acceptable temperature at which he wanted to exist and stared morosely at the front of the refrigerator, wondering when Yoshitsugu had populated it with a dozen magnets of cats. “I want something cold, though. Don’t you want something cold?”

“What, you?” No change in expression.

“No, I just—I mean _why thank you_ but—” It sure wasn’t easy, being whatever this was. He should have listed it as one of his job qualifications.

“There’s a watermelon in the fridge.”

“No. No melons.” So maybe, with the way his thoughts have been turning tonight, he didn’t want to see himself or Yoshitsugu hacking apart an overripe fruit with a knife. Great, he was neurotic after all.

“Then mochi ice cream?”

Todo Takatora was not a person of many weaknesses—or so he would have liked to think—but this was one. It had taken him a few minutes of intense internal struggle to accept the concept of mochi ice cream, which was after all an Americanized invention. _Ice cream? In a manjuu?_ He could still remember the incredulous tone of his voice when he first heard about this thing—or rather, he didn’t have to remember, because Yoshitsugu had recorded him saying it. But in the end he had to admit that this little sphere of frozen happiness united the two greatest loves of his life, aside from the study of architecture, and of course the person standing in front of him. (Maybe he was giving away the title of the greatest love of his life a little too liberally, but hell, that was part of being true to oneself.)

“Okay, yeah, let’s do that. Definitely.”

A few minutes later they stood in front of the bakery/café/dedicated mochi ice cream shop (in his next incarnation, Takatora had decided, he was going to own such a business, as long as he could design the storefront himself), which had closed half an hour ago. “Your idea,” he said, with just the slightest bit of moroseness.

“Well, at least it’s nice and cool outside now.”

They stood in silence for a few moments, Takatora watching the wind blow through Yoshitsugu’s hair, and then wondering if Yoshitsugu was aware of him watching the wind blow through his hair, and then just feeling stupid. “Hey,” he finally said.

“What?”

“I’ve been wondering, well…” he supposed that he would have to ask, or else it would always be at the back of his mind, he would always be trying to avert his eyes from red flowers and the glint of light off sharp edges. “Did you, I mean, do you, okay, now you’re just blinking at me a lot which is definitely on purpose. Okay, how do I put this. Do you—”

“Do I remember everything? Of course. And you, well, with you it couldn’t be more obvious.”

“Okay, just checking.” Takatora realized only now that his heart had been pounding, and that for some reason he wished he could sit down right this moment, in the middle of the parking lot.

“You’ve always been very good to me, Takatora. I should have thanked you properly long ago, but we’d just known each other too well and for too long, for that to happen—and besides, that’s not what you really need, is it?” When Yoshitsugu looked at him now it was with a gaze intent and unblinking. “Only now, when we are fortunate enough to live in a time when the flow of things permits for it, and for both of us—let me be good to you as well.”

There were a thousand things Takatora could have said in return, but the first that came to mind was, “You mentioned the flow.”

“What?”

“You owe me five bucks. Oh god, I didn’t mean to say that—holy shit, I’m sorry, I’m an idiot. I mean, I love you a lot.”

“No, you’re right, I owe you. Do you know why I slipped up, just now? For the first time in my life, or, well, ever, I was so nervous that I had little idea of what I was saying.” Yoshitsugu closed his eyes briefly in a smile, looking more than ever like a very contented cat.

“Wow, that’s, um—” For just a moment, Takatora was certain there was no one else happier in the world.

“Take it as a compliment. Now, let me buy you a box of mochi with those five dollars, the grocery store’s still open.”


End file.
